As known, each pole segment can be wound singularly with one or more electric conductors (in the following also referred to as wire).
The sequence of operations by which the pole segments are produced normally provides winding the pole segments singularly, assembly of the pole segments to form the stator, connecting of the leads of the pole segments to terminals, fusing of leads of the pole segments to the terminals and definite joining of the pole segments by using external binding.
An advantage of a stator formed from the pole segments consists in the increase of the quantity of electric conductor that can be present in the finished stator. Consequently, a stator formed from pole segments of is capable of producing higher performance for the same sizing of the final stator.
The existing production lines of stators formed from pole segments are scarcely automatic.
The few stages that are automatic adopt general purpose robots, which have high costs and long production time. In this situation, a high number of these devices are required to work in parallel in order to reach the required production quantities.
Furthermore, for the operations which follow winding of the pole segments, the latter need to be assembled together in a joining situation that is not final. In this situation there is a high risk of disjoining, or incorrect positioning of the pole segments during the successive work stages, which contemplate for example: transferring, termination of the coil leads, fusing of the leads to the terminals, quality inspection, definite joining of the pole segments together. Examples of solutions for producing of stators formed from pole segments have been described in EP 1098425 and EP 1629588.